About this site
Food Expiry Tracker is a set of free tools and plain-English guides for the dates printed on food, made by the developer of FreshScan.
Why it exists
Food date labels are confusing, and that confusion costs money. In a 2025 national survey, 87 percent of Americans said they understand date labels, but only 53 percent answered questions about them correctly. Most of the dates on food aren't regulated at all: outside of infant formula, federal rules don't require them. This site explains what the dates mean, where they come from, and how long food actually keeps, with the sources shown.
Who makes it
The site and the FreshScan iPhone app are made by Gabriel Petersen. FreshScan reads the date printed on packaging with the iPhone camera and reminds you before it passes. The tools here are free and don't require the app.
Where the information comes from
- Storage times come from USDA's FoodKeeper data (public domain, published by the Food Safety and Inspection Service) and FDA's refrigerator and freezer storage chart. We reproduce them as published.
- Date-label meanings come from USDA FSIS and FDA guidance, federal regulations and, for state rules, the text of the law itself.
- Statistics come from the original reports (EPA, ReFED) and are dated. We don't repeat numbers we can't trace to a source.
- Every guide lists its sources at the bottom and shows the date it was last reviewed.
We're not a government agency, a food-safety authority or a medical provider, and nothing here is professional advice. Nobody on this site is presented as an expert reviewer, because no such review takes place. If a source changes or we got something wrong, tell us and we'll fix it.
How the date decoder is tested
The expiration date decoder is a port of the date parser inside FreshScan. It's checked against the app's own Swift code on more than 4,000 label variations (formats, keywords, OCR misreads, leap years and ambiguous dates), and the two must agree on every date, date type and confidence score.
Contact
Last updated
Point your iPhone at the date. Get reminded before it passes.
FreshScan reads the printed date on the package, tells you which kind of date it is, and reminds you two days ahead and on the morning of the date. No account, and your items stay on your phone.
- Reads best by, use by, sell by and EXP dates, and skips packed-on dates
- Reminders at 9:00 AM, 2 days before and on the day
- Free for up to 10 items at a time